Washington still maneuvering to dominate Angola

By G. Dunkel, in Workers World, 9 March, 1995

The National Security Revitalization Act, the Contract With
America's foreign-affairs plank, doesn't mention Angola by name.
But the African country is certainly on the mind of the
Republican right wing.

The bill, in the version passed by the House International
Relations Committee, would restrict the role the U.S. plays in
United Nations "peace-keeping" activities.

Of course, Washington has never let the UN take any action on
Angola that would adversely affect its chief puppet there, the
murderous Jonas Savimbi, head of UNITA since its formation in the
early 1960s. And whatever the Republicans think of the UN, they
certainly won't say boo if UN action helps maintain their
client's influence.

In 1981, when South Africa invaded Angola in support of UNITA,
the U.S. government vetoed a Security Council resolution
condemning the invasion. Washington support of UNITA still
continues, under both Republican and Democratic administrations
alike.

After the UN Security Council voted Feb. 8 to authorize sending
7,000 UN "peace keepers" to Angola--allegedly to support a peace
agreement between UNITA and the MPLA, the governing party in
Angola--U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright praised the accord
because it "provided concrete guarantees of UNITA's political and
physical survival."

One thing UN forces are not in Angola for is peace--as the Somali
people can attest to.

U.S.-UN ROLE IN ANGOLA

Angola is potentially one of the richest countries in Africa. It
has oil, diamonds, coal, a fertile soil that let it export food
and coffee under Portuguese colonialism, and ports that could,
under peaceful conditions, serve much of southern Zaire and
Zambia.

But 35 years of combat--beginning against the Portuguese
colonialists in 1961 and turning into civil war between the MPLA
and the U.S.-backed UNITA forces in 1975--have left it with the
highest percentage of amputees in the world.

Around 3 million Angolans have died from the years of warfare.
The country has also suffered tens of billions of dollars in
material damage.

All this carnage is courtesy of Savimbi's UNITA, backed by money
and weapons provided by both the U.S. government and the
apartheid regime in South Africa.

Savimbi is probably not too worried about the loss of his racist
South African backers. Over the years, he has built personal ties
to such influential Republicans as Sen. Jesse Helms, Rep. Dan
Burton, Col. Ollie North and Sen. Robert Dole.

All these characters may say they're concerned about U.S.
participation in UN military maneuvers. But they didn't whisper
the mildest of rebukes when Savimbi renewed the civil war in 1992
after he lost a UN-monitored election. Nor are they at all
against intervention that strengthens imperialist domination.

After an Angolan army offensive drove UNITA out of all its
strongholds and all the major cities it had seized, the
Republicans' complaints--and Bill Clinton's too--were directed at
the MPLA for violating the "spirit of national reconciliation
that is so necessary."

It's hard to tell how serious the dispute over the UN is. But one
thing is clear: Both the Republicans and Democrats expect it will
do Washington's bidding and back its puppet in Angola.

They are no more concerned with the welfare of the Angolan people
than they are with the needs of poor and working people here in
the United States.